STUDY: FEW WORKING COUPLES HAPPY

A Minnesota researcher says middle-class couples are struggling to balance work and family in jobs designed for the days when men were the breadwinners. 
Phyllis Moen, who holds a chair in sociology at the University of Minnesota, tracked 1,060 couples. She found that only one in six qualified as super couples -- with both partners reporting a good quality of life -- while more than half reported that neither was getting much enjoyment out of life.

Moen said couples are "stretched thin by 'work-friendly' jobs."

She presented her paper -- "Dual-Earner Middle-Class Time Convoys, Ecologies, and Life-Course 'Fit': Super Couples or Couples Stretched Thin?" -- at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International 

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